Friday, June 20, 12:00 noon
Members $55, guests $65

When Americans return home from Italy, they rave about the food. The pork loin in Tuscany, the pizza in Naples, the gelato in Rome. Pity poor Venice: next to the romance, the gondolas, the strolling musicians—not to mention talk of the city sinking into the Adriatic—the food gets short shrift. In fact, most people will say that if you want great food in Venice, leave town! They suggest heading to the outskirts of the city, where you’ll find the real heart and soul of cucina Veneziana, dishes like calf’s liver with polenta, and black ink risotto. We suggest heading to a different set of islands altogether—New York City—and hightailing it over to Le Zie. There, native Italian Roberto Passon leads the crew at a restaurant Time Out New York called “the finest Venetian restaurant in town...It’s also one of the very best Italian spots, regardless of regional focus.”

Passon grew up on a farm in Udine, which is not far from the City of Canals. He studied la cucina italiana in Venice and cooked in Switzerland for three years. In 1996, Passon was working at Venice’s luxurious Hotel Cipriani when Francesco Antonucci handpicked him to become sous- and pasta chef at Remi in Midtown Manhattan, where Antonucci was chef and part-owner. Le Zie, the sister restaurant to Remi, opened in Chelsea in 1999; Passon was named to head up the kitchen.

At the modest, friendly Le Zie, he has built a loyal following among nearby artists and gallery owners, who rely on his homey spaghetti and meatballs (voted best in the city by the New York Press) and comforting homemade pastas to provide them with daily inspiration. But his “straightforward, serious, and good” cooking, as New York Observer critic Moira Hodgson described it, attracts plenty of diners from all corners of the city as well. His osso bucco is “rich and unctuous,” and his “fish dishes are wonderful,” says New York magazine; his risotto with squid is “superb,” per New York Times man Eric Asimov; and his rigatoni with ground veal and rosemary, and meltingly tender lamb shank with roasted potatoes, are favorites of Hodgson. All in all, according to Time Out, “Chef Roberto Passon cooks superbly and consistently.” So well, in fact, that the Observer went so far as to note in its headline that “Le Zie’s Venetian Specialties Rehabilitate the Region’s Rep.”